bewail

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English biwailen,^[2][3][4] formed from Middle English bi- + wailen.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]} Wail is from Old Norse væla (“to lament”), from væ (“woe”), the same word as woe.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To wail over, especially over the dead: the OED's first record is Kyng Alisaunder, about 1300,^[5][6] which the MED dates as about 1330, from a text of perhaps before 1300.^[2] Dictionary.com gives 1250–1300,^[9] and Hoad and Merriam-Webster the 14th century.^[7][4]

Semantic evolution

Chaucer has it from about 1374, both with an object and intransitively, and it is one of his common verbs, with 27 occurrences, against 3 in Gower;^[5][10] the Monk's Tale has "I wol biwaille in manere of tragedie".^[2] The MED also records its use for remorse over sins and for complaining about something.^[2] Spenser has it in 1590 for causing an event to be lamented, the OED suggests.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as to bemoan, to lament, to express sorrow for.^[11] From 1796, in Southey, it could also mean to mourn the lack of something.^[5] Modern dictionaries add expressing deep regret and deploring.^[4][12]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – to wail over, especially over the dead.^[5][6]
• c. 1374 – to express great sorrow for; also intransitive, to lament.^[5]
• 1590 – perhaps, to cause an event to be lamented.^[5]
• 1796 – to mourn the lack of something.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To express deep sorrow over a person or thing; to lament or mourn: The villagers bewailed the loss of their fishing fleet.^[12][4][5]
2. To express strong regret about something; to deplore: She bewailed the decline of letter-writing.^[4][2]
3. To utter lamentations, without an object.^[5][13]

Word family

• bewailer
• bewailment
• bewailingly
• unbewailed
• unbewailing

Related words

• wail
• woe

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press